I nod once.
“They’ll come for both.”
She doesn’t flinch. “Then we fight.”
I lean forward, elbows on the table. “You don’t win against the Bratva in a street fight.”
“Then how?”
I wait a beat, let the weight of it sit. She stares at me like she already knows she won’t like the answer.
Finally, I say it.
“We make it legal.”
Her brows pull tight. “Legal?”
“You marry me.”
2
ANA
Six years ago
Markov’s funeral
The church is packed because grief in public is a performance, and no one in the Bratva shies away from performance, even when it means paying respects to a man they despised. That part is understandable. Vadim Markov, my husband and the Pakhan of the Markov household, rose to power early in life and held it through fear, loyalty, and careful displays of control. He understood power and money only as things to be taken, and he bent every rule available to build them.
When his own bodyguards shot him while he was walking through his rose garden in full bloom, they did it at close range and didn’t hesitate, leaving twenty-eight entry wounds, nine of them lodged inside him.
He died there on the stones, surrounded by flowers he had ordered planted for appearances alone. His followers, the Bratva, and what passed for family chose to keep his death quietwhile they argued over the finer points of his legacy and how to divide what he left behind.
I am part of that legacy. I learned that much at my husband’s funeral. In death, his body looks real enough. The consequences look worse.
Black coats line the pews, polished shoes scrape marble, and the muted murmur of voices never fully settles, because such men don’t do silence well unless they see reason for it.
I sit in the front row, spine straight, hands folded in my lap, dressed the way a widow is supposed to be dressed, modest and restrained and unremarkable enough to pass inspection. The dress was chosen for me, tailored by someone who didn’t ask what I wanted, and the veil is thin enough that I can see every face without being fully seen in return.
My husband’s funeral smells exactly like what his realm exuded, money, gun oil, and old resentment. Every man in attendance believes one of those things gives him the reason to size me up longer than necessary. I know most of them because Vadim paraded me in front of them while he was carving out his deals. I know what they took from my husband when he was alive, and I know what they think they can take from me now that he’s dead.
One of the older councilmen, Viktor Andreyevich, approaches. His suit fits like it was sewn twenty years ago, and his fingers twitch before they touch my elbow. He’s testing the water, trying to see if I flinch. I give him no reaction. He smiles anyway as though my lack of reaction invited him forward.
Before he can speak, a younger voice cuts in. It’s Sergei Orlov. Young, polished, and aware of it. He carries his money easily andspeaks as if he expects to be heard. “Mrs. Markova, the council extends its?—”
“Save it,” I say.
The words come out colder than I expect, and sharper. I let it be so.
Sergei straightens, his face faltering. “Tradition dictates that you be accounted for.”
Viktor nods once, his hawklike eyes watching, waiting for the slightest crack in my expression.
Irina saves me from further trouble. She steps in like a woman who’s shut down men before. “If the gentlemen would follow me, Mrs. Markova isn’t in a state to speak.” She doesn’t raise her voice. She may be my attendant, but her word always lands like steel.
She steers them out with a small nod, murmuring something about protocol and mourning. Before she disappears, she casts a brief glance over her shoulder, checking on me, like always. I give her a look that says thank you.
Markov’s body is barely cold. The power he held is still bleeding heat. And already, men are sniffing around the empty seat. They don’t like a throne without a hand on it.
